From the Pew Research Center:
Views about the existence and causes of global warming have changed little over the past year. A new Pew Research Center poll finds that 59% of adults say there is solid evidence that the earth’s average temperature has been getting warmer over the past few decades. In October 2009, 57% said this.
Roughly a third (34%) say that global warming is occurring mostly because of human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels, which also is little changed from last year (36%).
The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Oct. 13-18 among 2,251 adults reached on landlines and cell phones, finds that 32% say global warming is a very serious problem while 31% think it is somewhat serious. A year ago, 35% described global warming as a very serious problem and 30% said it was somewhat serious.
In 2006, far more Americans said there was solid evidence that the average temperature has been rising over the past few decades. In July of that year, 79% believed there was evidence of global warming, and half (50%) said it was mostly caused by human activity. Much of the change in attitudes about global warming occurred between April 2008 and last fall, with the decline coming mostly, though not entirely, among Republicans and independents. (See “Fewer Americans See Solid Evidence of Global Warming,” Oct. 22, 2009).
Two other indicators of opinion on the issue were not included in the October 2009 survey, and both show significant changes from earlier polls. Currently, 46% of the public says global warming is a problem that requires immediate government action. In July 2006, 61% said the issue needed immediate action. This decline is mostly a consequence of the fact that fewer now say global warming is a problem.
The public is divided on the question of whether scientists themselves agree that the earth is warming because of human activity: 44% say scientists agree, and 44% say they do not. In July 2006, when a much higher percentage of the public said there was solid evidence of global warming, 59% said that scientists agree that global warming is caused by humans, while just 29% said scientists do not agree.
The new survey finds continuing support for a range of policies to address the nation’s energy supply, including requiring improved vehicle fuel efficiency and increasing federal funding for research on wind, solar and hydrogen technology. Support for allowing more offshore oil and gas drilling – which declined during the Gulf of Mexico oil leak – has rebounded modestly. Currently, 51% favor allowing more offshore oil and gas drilling, up from 44% in June.
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Read the complete report here
Caveat: some of the usual suspects will complain that the graph I presented has “bias” due to it showing only the range of change in the data on the Y axis, and not the full possible range.
If lodging such a complaint, please consider lodging a complaint about the Y axis of these graphs also:
Sea Ice, Sea Level, Temperature rise
Thank you for your consideration – Anthony
I would like to see that graph correlated to how the person voted or what political party the person considers themselves to be a part of? Guaranteed, that the remaining bleivers are overwhelmingly democrats.
No question about warming global temperatures being a good thing? Well, that’s rather biased. Oh, that’s right warmer temps can only do bad things. I forgot.
O/T The Google ad i saw unter the article:
Hunger And Poverty – http://www.FromHungerToHope.com – Join Christina Aguilera in Fighting Hunger. Learn More & Get Involved!
Hilarious. Poor girl, i didn’t know the music downloads hurt business that much.
“…So looking at the graph percentage of respondents believing human activity is the cause.
Percentage should fall to zero around 2020…”
Yes, about the time we’ll be immersed in the coldest session of severe winters, if Joe Bastardi has got it right.
That’s bound to poke Joe Public into non-belief entirely. Shame it will have taken so long…
William says: “We are not addressing the real problems which is population and consumption per person”
Shall we elect people who think there are too many humans inhabiting the earth, and who also would balance how much we should each “consume”?
Yes, in fact that is an excellent idea, let them address the “real problems.” Let them campaign on reducing the population and on individual consumption of electricity, goods, and services.
I am not being sarcastic or rude, just agreeing that this is what policy makers need to come out and say. It is best to be truthful, as you are being.
That chart looks like my stock portfolio performance. 😉
I am only half joking, because this warm and fuzzy eco-nonsense is a luxury item for times when people have extra cash in hand and a safe job with a future. When the economy takes a hit (arguably because of costly green initiatives) people lose interest in luxuries and concentrate on things like food on the table and a roof over head.
Responding to R Gates at 11:23: Another reason for the public’s continuing ‘support’ of AGW is that CO2 has been confused with a pollutant, it is also used interchangeabley with Carbon or just plain soot. Something that our Government has encouraged.
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R. Gates,
sarcasm on/
Sure, why vote. It just doesn’t matter. Democracy is fake. We can’t do nothing anyway. Fate has overtaken us.
The climate scientists are the new UnTouchables. They are gods (the bad kind not the good kind). We cannot touch those climate scientists at all. They already won. We are doomed. DOOMED.
sarcasm off/
R. Gates , ha ha ha . . . . . . man, go get some martinis or something. You been hanging with a dismal crowd there my man.
John
OT
Please vote no in this California Prop 23 poll.
WUWT is going to need things to make fun of next year, laughing at CA and the damage they will suffer will be a hoot in the event of a real no vote on Prop 23.
We can track the job loses and higher energy bills in real time on our blog, and get a jolly good belly laugh at them fools in CA. Lets hope the fools in California live up to their reputation and vote down prop 23.
Big oil companies versus the ‘global warming law’
Poll on left side in article, scroll down.
http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2010/10/big-oil-companies-vs-the-global-warming-law.html
As Bill Clinton said: “It’s the economy, …”
People can only worry about one or two things at a time.
I think the logical question after answers “yes” to AGW and “yes” to immediate gov action is: Have you reduced your carbon footprint by at least the “expert” recomended 80% since you came to the conclusion that AGW is a big enough problem to warrant gov action?
The comments were:
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R. Gates says:
October 27, 2010 at 9:36 am
Interesting to see these kinds of polls. It should be remembered that public opinion is as fickle as the weather, and of course, everyone is happy and optimistic and “bullish” just at the height before a stock market crash, just as everyone is down and negative, at the stock market bottom. Best to stick with science, and realize that public perception means very little…
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Best to stick with science,
Yes, but whose science?
And I seem to recall that when the ‘public opinion’ was at it’s height, you and yours were violently beating the drum for ‘cap and trade,’ and a myriad of other restrictions on human activity.
But now that the fire has all but extinguished, well here you are playing the sour grapes game.
Zeke the Sneak says:
October 27, 2010 at 12:48 pm
William says: “We are not addressing the real problems which is population and consumption per person”
Shall we elect people who think there are too many humans inhabiting the earth, and who also would balance how much we should each “consume”?
Yes, in fact that is an excellent idea, let them address the “real problems.” Let them campaign on reducing the population and on individual consumption of electricity, goods, and services.
I am not being sarcastic or rude, just agreeing that this is what policy makers need to come out and say. It is best to be truthful, as you are being.
Are you volunteering to become the very first person to step into the ‘obliteration chamber’ in order to ‘reduce the use of resources and decrease the population?’
If not, then your statements are more than a bit hypocritical.
The scientific evidence for an enhanced greenhouse effect abounds: TOA satellites measure consistently an energy imbalance (net accumulation), the TOA IR emission spectrum shows a depression in the region of the 15 micron CO2 absorption band that is increasing in size, the downward IR spectrum shows an increasing emission from CO2; there is remarkable agreement in atmospheric warming as measured on the surface by thermometers and in the troposphere by microwave radiances, there is a measurable and steadily increasing melting of land ice (glaciers, greenland, antartica) and arctic sea ice, satellite and tidal gauge measurements show a persistent increase in sea level, and all of this when we are at a 100-year solar minimum!
There are certainly issues – current measurements of oceanic heat content cannot account for the total TOA energy imbalance, models to project warming into the next century will seem simple-minded compared to the ones we will have in 20 years, and we don’t fully understand the forcing associated with clouds. The science is not settled now, nor will it ever be.
The physics of CO2 absorption make this greenhouse gas, which is steadily and measurably increasing in the atmosphere, able to provide a clear and reasonably well understood mechanism for forcing the change we now see. No other mechanism, other than the general non-mechanistic statement of “natural causes”, has been identified. No natural causes have been identified.
It is easy to obfuscate an issue and to confuse the general public. Look only at the previous issues of acid rain, smoking, ozone hole. Skeptics say that the science is not settled, but the treat their assertions as rigorously proven. It is easy to make this issue political, as a contest between liberal and conservative ideologies. It is not such an issue. It deals with developing detailed and mechanistic scientific explanations of observed natural phenomena.
Clearly this recent and rather abrupt warming is something we need to keep an eye on and try to understand. People on this site who treat the issue as a political gotcha game do all of humanity a great disservice.
Grow up and quit playing your foolish little games.
899 says:
October 27, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Hey!, you DID NOT UNDERSTAND ZEKE, re-read the post. BTW: The best advice for you Malthusians is the following: Do not hesitate, preach with the example: Do it Now!
Public perspection has no bearing upon whether there is GW, nor on the reasons behind any GW. It has no bearing upon the underlying science.
However, it is importantant for 2 reasons. First, it is easier to sell the ‘science is settled’ dogma when the public hold the view that there is AGW. Second, Politicians have an eye for they believe are popular policies and which will encourage voter support. Politicians know that if they stray against public opinion to far, come election time, they will get booted out. The green movement was popular and the reason why the Politicians thought that they would jump on the bandwagon (and exploit it for what it is worth). However, if public opinion continues to slide, sooner or later Politicians will wake up and realise that pursuing CO2 reduction policies may come and back and bite them come election time. Whne they appreciate this, the CO2 reduction policies will be watered down.
Expect another hard drop in the polls as La Nina begins thumping the N. Hemisphere.
For AGW, the ice & snow will have extra bite, as is the general look on people’s faces as the reality of an early Winter takes form.
R. Gates says: October 27, 2010 at 11:23 am
…and thus, one of the reasons they (the politicians) are such loathesome creatures. Another reason is of course their complete reliance on selling their souls to whatever organization, group, corporation, etc. will give them money for their campaigns…
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Mr. Gates This is pretty rich –The AGW crowd were quite happy to persuade these same loathsome politicians with their shonky science to spend quad zillions to ‘save the planet’ on what is plainly their B.S.
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The truly average person on the street could really care less one way or another about the topic. It doesn’t impact their daily life (as far as they know, at least not yet) . and so the average person has no real opinion.
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Mr. Gates. You delude yourself with your apparent contempt for the ‘man in the street’. The general public is intelligent and can spot B.S. soon enough – that is why this downturn in public perception has occurred. They have spotted the shonky science, and they sure as hell know when they are being robbed blind in taxes used to ‘save the planet’.
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Whatever opinion they do have is likely to have been formed by their watching whatever major “news” channel they watch.
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Well Mr. Gates the MSM which is abysmal in its coverage of the sceptic’s viewpoint is failing in its proper purpose at about the same rate as the B.S. is being seen by the ‘man in the street’. There are many other means of communication such as the ‘blogosphere’. Don’t underestimate the ability of the public to find out what is going on and sort out the B.S.
Doug
Owen says says October 27, 2010 at 1:25 pm
So tell us why H2O itself is not the mechanism?
Also, tell us about epicycles, phlogiston, the lumeniferous ether and a bunch of concepts that were, presumably, in their time a clearly understood mechanism, but were just wrong.
Adam says:
October 27, 2010 at 10:14 am
Why do 46% say it requires government action where only 34% believe in AGW?
_________Reply;
The use of Prosecuting attorneys, and federal investigations into the fraud, 23% of response choice?
“”””” Owen says:
October 27, 2010 at 1:25 pm
The scientific evidence for an enhanced greenhouse effect abounds: “””””
Well Owen; you will get no argument on that (well speaking for me anyway); that is irrefutable.; excuse me; make that incontrovertible !
You then went on to say :-
“”””” There are certainly issues – current measurements of oceanic heat content cannot account for the total TOA energy imbalance, “””””
So this is where I start slipping on the ice. We have an agreed on mechanism for a small increase in heat content of the atmosphere; which in the global scheme of things is a rather minor part of the earth’s energy storage capacity; and then we run into the inability to account for the change or lack of change in the heat content, of what is clearly a very much larger heat storage portion of the planet; maybe hundreds to thousands of times that which we seem to agree on;
And that is not a sufficient cause for us to hesitate on treating the minor atmospheric warming as consequential; even though we are quite unable to demonstrate that any of that atmospheric imbalance is in any meaningful way transferred to the major energy storehouse; namely the deep oceans.
I realize that it would be enormously complex to even consider any monitoring of the vastly larger yet; heat content of the solid part of the planet.
This sounds a bit like a pimple on a wrinkle on a sandfly’s A***, if you ask me; Well don’t ask; I might be tempted to tell you what I really think.
Do try to at least be consistent. If one MAJOR part of the puzzle is not a part of the CONCENSUS SETTLED SCIENCE; don’t fall back on the infallibility of one minor aspect of the problem.
Richard Sharpe says:
October 27, 2010 at 1:45 pm
“So tell us why H2O itself is not the mechanism?”
H2O is in the mechanism, mightily, as the most potent positive feedback in the warming process (a warming atmosphere will contain increasingly more H2O). For H2O to explain the forcing however, you would need to posit a great steam vent in the pacific (or somewhere else) that would steadily and consistently pump out water vapor. But even that would condense almost immediately. It is quite difficult to make H2O a forcing agent of climate change on its own.
@899
I just meant policy makers should campaign openly about “overpopulation” and controlling “individual consumption.”
This is precisely what is meant by scientists and policy makers who come to us with hockey sticks and peddle “sustainablility.” But they know that if they ever said overtly said that the “real problem” is “population” and “individual consumption,” they would not see the inside of the dog catchers’ truck, let alone the WH.
Sorry if not clear. We hope to serve you better in the future. 🙂
Owen says:
October 27, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Let me tell you: You owe yourself a real scientific explanation. As you believe i the UN, try with the UN’s FAO organization, which shows how LOD is what is really behind temperatures changes:
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/y2787e/
Open the 08th. document, and see the graphs (BTW; this data is used by fishermen all over the world to accurately forecast fish catches).
You will then realize that it is not so simple as one may think: LOD follows gravity field, magnetic fields:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC19.htm
and gravity fields, etc.
Have you ever wondered why, but precisely why the Earth is inclined on the ecliptic in 23 degrees, and why is it so that your heart in within your chest is inclined,etc., etc.?
Believe me, we know nothing yet!
http://www.scribd.com/doc/40240418/Unified-Field-Explained-3
George Smith says:
“Do try to at least be consistent. If one MAJOR part of the puzzle is not a part of the CONCENSUS SETTLED SCIENCE; don’t fall back on the infallibility of one minor aspect of the problem.”
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Oceanic heat content is a major issue, and an unsettled one at that, but I did not dwell on any one minor aspect of the issue. I covered a series of internally consistent physical observations, all pointing to a rather rapid and recent change in global heat content. The heat capacity of the ocean overwhelms that of land or atmosphere, making the temperature changes of the ocean far smaller and more difficult to measure than that of the atmosphere. The stratification of the ocean and poor access to the deep ocean means that we simply do not know how the accumulating heat may be distributed. (We will know however, because science marches on, and that question will become better understood).
My point is this: the overall confluence of physically measurable data points to an energy imbalance and to the warming that would be expected to result from that imbalance.